


Upon a Star

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-27 14:04:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/662836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, a wish granted in love went very wrong. Many centuries later, the time comes to make it right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Upon a Star

**Author's Note:**

> This was entirely encouraged by [this](http://nothingeverlost.tumblr.com/post/41873897929/you-anon-you-just-did-the-nearly-impossible#notes) fantastic piece of Meta.

She heard him calling her name, as she always had.

No matter how she stoppered her ears, no matter how she turned her face away, no matter what she did, she could hear him.

He remembered her true name, the whispers of it. He made sure she was never forgotten, though he was naught more than nightmares and terror. They were as far from one another as two creatures could be, and yet, they were as one. Once, they had been. Once, she had loved him. Once, she had turned her face from the heavens and kissed the lips of a man who was still a man.

"Rheul Ghorum."

She closed her eyes.

"No," she whispered. "No, I cannot help you."

It was said that when a star was wished upon, then your wish would be granted, but that was a dream, a fantasy. If you wished upon a star, it had to be the first and only thought in your mind and soul. If you had anything else there, you would not be heard in the noise, but if your voice was clear and bright and unsullied.

"Rheul Ghorum!"

The tears burned her cheeks, and she shivered.

He would call, again and again, as he had for years, but never, never had she heard such pure, undiluted desperation in him.

Even when he was a mortal man, a simple man, even as he lay dying, a murderous dagger plunged into his breast by a thief, she had never felt him so desperate. Even when he had pleaded with her for just another day, a few more moments bought by magic, even when he had wept and clung to her hands, even then. 

That was a long time ago.

So very long that she could barely remember what his mortal face was like, the face of the man she had loved.

They had years, so many years of secrets, and it was only when he was fading that she truly understood that which was slipping through her fingers. And he had wished to the one person who had power enough to save him, and she had granted it, but without thought for the price. There was always a price, and in her folly, in her grief, she did not think on it.

He lived.

Oh, he lived.

He had always admired her power, but in him, something new was born, something of magic and desperation and grief and hunger, and no little greed. The man she loved was consumed whole, his body worn like a mantle, and the creature that he was now went against all that it was in her nature to be.

It had no name until she made it so: the Dark One.

His voice echoed in her ears and though the younger fairies looked to her for counsel, she sent tem from her. She stood upon the edge of the clouds, looking at the glittering spill of the world far below. Her hands shook, and she wished she could be human for just a moment, so that she could bend and break without anyone caring.

"My love."

The Blue Fairy flinched as if struck.

"No more," she whispered. "Please. No more."

That was her mistake: desperation.

It was a beacon to him, and even if she did not acknowledge him, he would know she had heard.

She struck the tears from her cheeks.

Better to silence him once and for all, to tell him no.

She descended to the mortal world, following the echo of his voice.

She found him in darkness, cloaked and silent, his head bowed, in the dank bowels of a castle.

Her feet made no sound as she alighted upon the ground, and she had not removed the veil that concealed her from mortal eyes, but he looked up all the same. He did not look as he once had. The magic she had given him had poisoned him from within, turning a simple, gentle man into something dangerous.

"You came," he said.

His voice was still the same as it had been then.

"You cannot call on me," she whispered, drawing a cloak of night about her. "You know my magic cannot change what you are."

He reached out a shaking hand. "I don't want you to change what I am," he said. "It's too late for that."

Against all her best intentions, she put out her hands, her fingertips softly to his. The tears came quickly. "Then why call on me? What can I do that the Dark One can't?"

He gazed at their hands, then up at her face. "Kill me," he whispered.

She stumbled back a step, made graceless by shock. “What?”

He pushed back his hood, and for a moment, his features shivered into the mortal man she had known. “You know that I’m asking,” he said quietly. “You gave me this power. Use the dagger. Take it back.”

Her cheeks were hot and wet. “You know I can’t,” she whispered. “If I could, I would have done it that night.”

He rose, holding out his trembling hands before him. “He holds it,” he said, his voice breaking with pain. “He holds me. He commands. He lets the ogres destroy all and makes me terrorise children and mothers.” He shook his head. “You could bring it to me. Set me free.”

“I can’t,” she whispered again. “You know I can’t touch it. The power… it runs counter to what I am.”

He laughed bitterly and she turned her face from him. “You gave me this curse, Rheul Ghorum,” he breathed. “Cursed me and bound me to the blade.”

“Because you asked it of me!” she cried. “You asked it of me and because I loved you…” She bit off her words, putting her hands to her face, trembling. “I can’t help you, Zoso. Not this time.”

She flinched when his fingers brushed her hair. “You came,” he said quietly.

“I did,” she breathed. “I shouldn’t be here.”

“Neither should I.” he tilted her chin up, his hand gentle on her cheek. “For the sake of what we had, please, help me. We can be rid of it.”

She looked up at him.

He looked drawn, tired, human, even more than he ever had while living.

“How?” she asked in a whisper. “Your life must be paid on the blade as it was before. If your life is taken, and the magic from you, there will be a new Dark One. They may be more terrible than you.”

His smile was fleeting. “If the blade is to go to someone, find someone who is loved,” he said, his thumb grazing along her cheek. “Give the one who loves them the means to save them.”

“I don’t know…”

He shook his head. “You do,” he said. “You have always known.”

“A way to a land without any magic,” she breathed.

“The way you never gave me,” he murmured. 

“Would you have taken it, if I did?” she said, meeting his eyes.

“And looked at a sky without the blue star?” He shook his head. “Never.” He bowed his head, pressing his brow to hers. She could feel fresh tears on her face. “Monster I may be, but there are some things even I can’t live without.”

She touched the back of his hand gently. “It’ll take time,” she said.

One side of his mouth turned up. “I have all the time in the world,” he said. “Find them for me, a weak one and the one who loves them. I can do the rest.” His hand trembled against her cheek. “And then, I’ll be free.”

“And me?” She sounded like a mortal, a child, petulant, broken, sad. Her voice was made thin with weeping, and she wanted him to see that, to hold her, just for a moment, just for a heartbeat. “What will I have left if I let you go?”

His lips ghosted hers for a moment before they started to burn. Too much power. Too much magic of such different kinds.

“Peace,” he whispered.


End file.
